Medical Malpractice

The Law Offices of Steven L. Martin helps people who have been injured due to medical malpractice in Los Angeles and Southern California. When we get sick, we put our trust in the doctors and medical professionals who are educated and trained to help us with our healthcare matters. When a doctor violates that trust through negligence or incompetence, the experience can be especially traumatic and damaging to our faith in the system.

Like any case of negligence, a person who breaches a duty of care to another is liable to the injured person for the damages caused by that breach. A doctor or other medical professional owes a duty to his or her patients to practice with the skill, knowledge, training and ability of the average, reasonable medical practitioner in the area. This duty can be breached in any number of ways, such as:

Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose a disease or condition

Failure to treat a disease or condition, or improper or ineffective treatment

Surgical mistakes, including performing the wrong surgery, operating on the wrong body part, or even performing a procedure on the wrong patient

Foreign bodies such as clamps, sponges, and other objects left inside of a patient after surgery

Prescribing or administering the wrong medication

Failing to inform the patient of risks before initiating treatment

Complex Cases Requiring Experience and Expertise

Medical malpractices are some of the more challenging personal injury cases to prove. The practice of medicine involves professional skill and judgment and subjective decisions about how best to treat a patient. Also, highly esoteric medical matters must be explained in an easily understandable manner to lay persons on a jury who have likely not had any medical education or training. Expert medical testimony is often required to establish the fact of malpractice, along with the legal skill of the attorney in explaining those facts to the jury, who must sift through medical testimony from both sides.

Another challenge is the common defense claim that the injured patient caused or contributed to his or her own injuries, either by not providing a full disclosure of the patient’s medical history before the procedure, or by not properly following doctor’s orders following the procedure. Even if the patient somehow contributed to the injury, this fact does not absolve the doctor from his or her negligence. We do not let the focus of the case shift away from the doctor’s negligence, and will hold the defendants accountable for all the harm they have caused.

Medical malpractice cases have other specific issues which differentiate them from other personal injury matters, such as the statute of limitations and statutory caps on the damages that may be awarded. If you have been injured by a doctor, hospital, or other health care provider, be sure and retain an attorney who has experience handling cases of medical malpractice. In Southern California, contact the Law Offices of Steven L. Martin for a free consultation.